With the Wii U now making its way to stores, Nintendo's Wii is now joining its console ancestors on the pages of video game history. Nobody expected much out of the "Revolution", as Nintendo called it in its early stages of development. The Gamecube had finished in third place, just behind the Xbox and miles behind the PS2, and the Wii was expected to be Nintendo's last gasp before a Sony/MS duopoly forced it into the third party developer space. The groan-worthy name "Wii" and the console's underpowered specs that didn't support HDTV resolutions - people joked about the Wii being 1 1/2 Gamecubes duct-taped together - did little to dispel people's dismissal of the Wii, even when its unique motion controller was unveiled.

In the space of six years, the Wii has sold over 90 million units, becoming Nintendo's most successful console ever and selling only a few million units less than the PlayStation 1, a sales milestone that neither the PS3 nor the 360 are likely ever to see. When I first joined 1UP, I was one of millions scouring every Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, and Gamestop in town trying to find a Wii. It was even the subject of my first pathetic little blog. And though I eventually succumbed to the siren's song of online fighting games on the 360 (since the Wii's online infrastructure was never up to the task) and then to HD RPGs and free online on the PS3, my Wii has remained connected to my TV. It's gone through periods of non-use during software droughts, though these droughts were never as severe as the ones that plagued the Nintendo 64. It's also delivered a lot of unique games. The Wii's unique controller and lack of HD power made porting games popular on the 360 or PS3 to the Wii a losing prospect, but from those developers who were willing to bring original games to the Wii came quite a few gems that were available on no other platform.

One other selling point of the Wii was the Virtual Console, which allowed you to download digital versions of select games from Nintendo's past - and eventually those from old Sega, Hudson, or Commodore consoles as well - onto the Wii's internal storage (and later SD cards) and play them. Since Nintendo has a long legacy of titles from the good old days, this should have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the Virrual Console had a slight pitfall: its games were keyed to the Wii they were bought on rather than to a user account, as PSN, Xbox Live, and Steam do, so if your Wii was broken, you lost your games. Nintendo has at least rectified this somewhat with the Wii U by allowing you to transfer your VC purchases to your new Wii U via a SD card. The Virtual Console was also undone somewhat by long software droughts. Some weeks, the offerings would be awesome, but for long periods of time, it was slim pickings, and many of the most-loved games of Nintendo's past, like Final Fantasy VI, arrived long after the fanfare for the Wii had died out. For my part, since I still have my SNES and N64 games, I mostly stuck with those few games I had missed or with Sega Genesis RPGs, since I'd never owned a Genesis.

It's hard to imagine that the Wii I was searching for when I joined 1UP in 2007 is now nearing retirement age, but in honor of the retirement of the Wii and the launch of the Wii U, here are some of the games that I loved on the Wii.

1. Xenoblade Chronicles (Nintendo/Monoliftsoft, 2012)

Xenoblade Chronicles was a game that nearly wasn't, at least for Americans. Despite being of the same lineage that produced hits like Xenogears and Xenosaga, Xenoblade nearly fell victim to Nintendo's long-running antipathy towards RPGs in the United States, made all the more maddening by the fact that an English version was available in Europe but was also out of reach due to the Wii's region-locking. Enter Operation Rainfall, a massiv NInternet fan campaign to get Nintendo to release Xenoblade (as well as The Last Story and Pandora's Tower) in the United States. Thankfully, whether because of Op. Rainfall or Nintendo itself wanting to build up hype for Xenoblade by drawing out the suspense, Nintendo relented and released Xenoblade.

It's a good thing, too, because Xenoblade is a great RPG. It's a huge open-world RPG set on the bodies of two ancient titans, one biological and one mechanical, who killed each other in an ancient battle at the dawn of time. Shulk, the protagonist, a human living on the Bionis, wields the titular Xenoblade in a war against the Mechons from the machine-like Mechonis titan. The gameplay is very similar to that of Final Fantasy XII, which was perhaps the best RPG from the previous generation, which is also a good thing.

2. Punch-Out!! (Nintendo/Next Level Games, 2009)

Of all the RPGs and adventure games I've listed here, one of my favorite Wii games has turned out to be this modern update of one of Nintendo's oldest arcade games.

Punch-Out!! isn't really a fighting game. Its gameplay style is actually more akin to rhythm games like Guitar Hero. It simply uses boxing, rather than music, as its gameplay mechanic. Nintendo and Next Level have even described it as a puzzle game. Punch-Out!! once more pits Little Mac against a colorful cast of politically incorrect boxers like Bald Bull, Glass Joe, Von Kaiser, and Super Macho Man. With Piston Hondo and Bear Hugger respectively, even Japan, home of Punch-Out's publisher, and Canada, home of the developer, aren't spared. Next Level did an awesome job of bringing the personality of the NES classic to life in 3-D, and I hope Nintendo and Next Level will team up again with a new Punch-Out on the Wii U.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Nintendo, 2011)

While the Wii launched with Twilight Princess, that game was for all intents and purposes a Gamecube game ported to the Wii at the last minute with motion controls tacked on to build hype for Nintendo's new console, which is why it isn't listed here even though it's my favorite Zelda. I consider it to be a Gamecube game. Skyward Sword is the Wii's proper Zelda game.

When Skyward Sword came out, people hoped for its floating world to have the same kind of majestic scope as the world of Sega's DC/Gamecube RPG, Skies of Arcadia Legends, or perhaps the Great Sea of Wind Waker. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bit too ambitious for Skyward Sword. However, the dungeons are some of the best dungeons seen in a Zelda game, and the motion-control swordplay, making use of Wii Motion +, feels much more fluid than the tacked-on swordplay of the Wii version of TP. Skyward Sword is an excellent game. The fantastic Gamecube games were just a very tough act to follow.

4. The Last Story (Xseed/Mistwalker, 2012)

Another RPG that seemed like Japan and Europe razzing American RPG lovers until RPG localization house Xseed rode to the rescue. This game comes from Mistwalker, the studio Hironobu Sakaguchi founded after the catastrophic losses from FF: The Spirits Within forced his resignation from Square. Mistwalker's first two efforts, the 360-exclusive Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, failed to make much of a splash, so Mistwalker partnered with Nintendo for this one. This game is much better than either Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey, and its graphics push the Wii about as far as it's going to go. Xseed recently announced that TLS is its most successful game ever!

5. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo, 2007)

My favorite Mario games since SM64, Galaxy makes clever use of gravity in maneuvering Mario around on its various planetoids and does more to capture the classic platforming action of earlier Mario games in 3-D.

6. Donkey Kong Country Returns (Nintendo/Retro, 2010)

With Rare now making Kinect avatar games for Microsoft, Nintendo turned to another second-party studio of renown, Retro Studios, to reboot DKC. As it turns out, Retro's DKC far surpasses the Rare games in every way. While Rare's DKC games seemed like copies of Nintendo's platformers, DKC Returns is a meaty, full-featured platforming game.

7. Metroid: Other M (Nintendo/Team Ninja, 2010)

Yes, I know that I'm not supposed to like this one. Yes, I know that Samus was "ruined" by Team Ninja's portrayal of her as a damsel-in-distress. But I liked this game. To me, it played more like what I wanted a 3-D Metroid game to play like than Metroid Prime did, and Samus's power-ups now work the way they were originally supposed to. I do have Metroid Prime 3, but I kind of lost interest in the Prime formula after the second game. However, Super Metroid is still my favorite Metroid game.

8. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor (Nintendo/Treasure, 2010)

Unlike the N64 game, the Wii S&P got a US release, and without the usual drama associated with Nintendo's more obscure Japanese games. It's one of the best-looking games on the Wii, as you might expect from Treasure. It's balls-to-the-wall hard, also par for the course from Treasure.

9. Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon (Square Enix, 2008)

This game is the latest in the Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon series of turn-based graphical roguelikes, and in addition to a cast of quirky characters designed after old-school Square characters, it also features remastered versions of music from the series.

10. Wii Sports (Nintendo, 2006)

I enjoyed swinging my Wii Remote at virtual baseballs, tennis balls, and golf balls for awhile, and my family did, too. I also enjoyed the boxing game in Wii Sports, although Punch-Out is a much better game.

Yeah...

...It really is a good game. I don't know if you've played any other Mystery Dungeon games like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Shiren, or perhaps Namco's Nightmare of Druaga, but if you have, you get the idea. This is just a Final Fantasy-flavored version of those games.

I seemed to enjoy my Wii more than most

I really loved the Mario Galaxy games, the most fun I've had with a platformer since Crash Bandicoot was being made by Naughty Dog. Xenoblade caught me off guard with how much I loved it, one of my favorite JRPGs now. I'm hoping I like The Last Story, but right now it's kind of meh. I preferred MP3 over Other M to be honest and thought Skyward Sword despite really good dungeons was terrible by Zelda standards. My favorite Wii sidescroller was actually Kirby's Return to Dreamland, surprised by how great that was. Then Virtual Console let me try games like OoT, Super Castlevania IV, Paper Mario, and so many more for the first time.

It wasn't the best system, but Wii doesn't get enough credit for what it did right.

...

SM Galaxy was the best platformer I've played since my personal favorite, SM64. I never played Galaxy 2. I liked the nods to older Mario games in Galaxy, like the theme from SMB3.

The Last Story is a good game, but it does take a little time to get warmed up. However, I'm used to this from RPGs, so it doesn't bother me.

I tried to like MP3. Prime 1 is still an awesome game in my book, but I guess I'm tired of the Prime formula. Other M was by no means a perfect game, but it had a lot of potential.

On Skyward Sword, I like it in the same way I like Spirit Tracks. The overworrld exploration leaves something to be desired, as I always thought the overworld was as important in a Zelda game as the dungeons. But the Gamecube Zeldas, which were my favorite Zeldas, were so incredible that I don't think Nintendo can ever top them, much like I don't think Nintendo will ever be able to top A Link to the Past with another 2-D Zelda.

The Virtual Console is a great idea, I just wish that transferring your VC purchases was easier. Ho-wever, at the time, it was more acceptable than it is now. I already had most of the Virtual Console games that came from Nintendo systems, and I used it to get games I didn't have like FaXanadu. Unfortunately, a lot of my favorite NES games, like Wizards and Warriors, Ultima: Exodus, Dragon Warrior, Metal Gear, and Bionic Commando, were no-shows on VC. Likewise, the Arcade section had a lot of wasted potential. We never got any of Nintendo's arcade games.

The Wii did a lot right, and it never sunk to the awful famine/feast periods that killed the Nintendo 64, times when it would be months before anything worth playing came out. I don't think the Wii cut it as a primary console or an only console though.

Man...

...I wish I had the Punch-Out CE. Punch-Out was a favorite on the NES, and I really love the Wii Punch-Out. I so want Nintendo to give the franchise to Next Level Games to do a Punch-Out!! for Wii U.

I never was especially impressed with Rare. They did some good CG graphics, but their games were too heavy on collectathons and most of them were very derivative of work done at Nintendo EAD in Japan. Goldeneye and Perfect Dark deserve props for popularizing FPS's on consoles, though, if you like that genre.

Great Blog

I can agree that the Wii might have had flaws, but it was still a great console and because I'm not allowed to have a second console, I always used it (and still do) to the max.

Both Mario Galaxy are (so far) my favorite games. I have to say that even though I haven't finished Skyward Sword, my favorite of the two Wii Zelda's is Twilight Princess, for pretty much the reasons you stated when you did your blog about the game. Skyward Sword is great though. I haven't played Other M, but I managed to get a copy of the Metroid Prime Trilogy before it got rare. Donkey Kong Country Returns was great too, and I started to like more as time progressed.

Yeah....

...Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda to this day. When it came out, the Wii was very hard to find so I got the Gamecube version instead, and having played both, I still prefer the Gamecube version, so in my mind it's a GC game.

There are other great Wii games out there, like Muramasa, Zack and Wiki, and the Wii edition of RE4.

Wii!

I also didn't like Skyward Sword, but I think the Wii in general was a good system. The Mario Galaxies were damn good and Smash Brothers was a work of genius. I have Xenoblade but I haven't played much of it, but I will when I get a Wii U (someday).

I missed out

I plan on getting a Wii maybe sometime next year (not a Wii U as I also want to play Gamecube games). There was a lot of games I missed out on (that you mention here) such as Super Mario Galaxy, Skyward Sword, and the Last Story that I would really like to play. Xenosaga I really want to play too, but I don't think I have the time for long games like that anymore.

for some this is the end

but for me this is only the beginning. I've passed up on so many Wii games over the years I'm looking forward to the price drops and bargin bin offers that I'm sure most of these games will find themselves in. It's the GC all over again!